Rudimental Interview

What's It Like To Spend A Crazy Weekend In Vegas With The UK's Hottest New EDM Export?

AA: The audiences here are quite eclectic, which is great for us, but radio is quite conservative. So it's a bit harder to get into the psyche and it’s taken us a couple of years, but I think now people are starting to see it.

DM: Your next single was “Waiting All Night” — how did you decide to go with that?

Amir Amor: We had a single between “Feel the Love” and “Waiting All Night,” but “Waiting All Night” was a bit of a battle for us, because our label wanted to go with something else. I think that was the first time we realized that we really have to tell them to put their sock in their own mouths every once in a while, and just do what we want to do. We were playing “Waiting All Night” live, before it was even finished, and we could see the reaction that we were getting from that song, and we all had a feeling, between all four of us, that this could be a big song. We had to go against their wishes and do it ourselves.

DM: And now you are working with Avicii’s guy, Nile Rodgers?

AA: Yes! We did a jam the other night, he's our pal now. We were hanging out with him and Duran Duran the other night, in a studio in London, along with Mark Ronson, and we did a jam. It's pretty surreal, because he's obviously a legend and we met him at a festival, I think he bought us some pizzas and he was like, "Can I take a picture with you guys?" It's like, "You want to take a picture with us? So, OK." Yeah. Since then, we've been keeping in touch, and he's a wicked guy. He's a legend; he's an inspiring producer as well.

DM: And now you’re touring with Ed.

AA: Yes, we've known Ed for a long time, so it's a privilege for him to invite us on tour with him, really. Working in the studio with him, he's a super talented singer, songwriter. He's just very natural the way he writes. He's actually really really eclectic with his tastes, and so are we, so working with him is really natural, it's really easy.

PA: I think it might be quite different sonically, especially Ed being a one-man band — owning the stage like he does. That's been a completely different style, but it's pretty similar in the soulfulness. We clicked musically when we did a studio session, was it a year ago now?

AA: Yeah, it was a funny session, because The Game, the rapper, he walked in. We ended up doing four songs with him and Ed. Then we ended up writing “Bloodstream,” which is one of our songs with Ed. DM: Speaking of touring, I hear you guys have some interesting pre-show rituals?

PA: Yeah, some interesting rituals after shows, as well. Pre-show, everyone is playing music. Everyone's got their own little thing. Amir likes to…

AA: I'll just play.

PA: Leon is actually surprisingly quite quiet, he sort of goes into his zone. I'm normally making noise and telling really bad jokes and throwing food at people or crisps and sometimes we leave the dressing room and it gets a bit messy, but we actually cleaned it up straight away.

AA: We helped sort it out.

PA: And said sorry to the promoter.

AA: We grew up together, so we're like a school trip without a teacher.

PA: There's no rules.

AA: No chaperones. No Mum and Dad.

PA: If you put 10 of us in a club, we'll be the most fun people in that club, and we'll probably be standing on tables. But it's all fun with us, and it's all good vibes, because that's what all we're about is just having a good time.